


The last laugh

by Alexander_Wesker



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: (Still depends on your interpretation), Canonical Character Death, Disturbing Themes, Dream-like narration, Gen, Open to Interpretation, Poetic, Supernatural Elements, this can be either real or a dream
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-11-19 11:55:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18135428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alexander_Wesker/pseuds/Alexander_Wesker
Summary: He sleeps, six feet under the dirt. Yet Jeremiah is sure he is still laughing.





	The last laugh

He sleeps, six feet under the dirt.

He sleeps in a two times disacrated grave.

Under the cold, moist soil that has dirtied his pure white coat.

His eyes open wide, blank and glassy, slowly whitening.

He has never closed his eyes while he was sleeping, Jeremiah remembers that.

And that has not changed not even now, that he lays in his eternal sleep.

There is no more breath in his lungs, no more life in his body.

Yet, Jeremiah is sure he is still _laughing_.

Dirty white pulsating maggots crawling, _gnawing_ , slithering,  
_nesting_ under his porcelain perfect skin.

He is still laughing.

Jeremiah feels his own skin itch, he feels those little insects crawling over him.

He can't sleep for more than one hour at night, the stillness of slumber is too similar to that of death. And he can feel the cold skeletrical fingers of the grim reaper grazing on his skin, threatening to tight its grasp, to take him down, _down_ with his brother.

He can hear the _ghost_ of Jerome's laugh in his ears, ringing, echoing, _picking_ on his brain, making him twitch and shiver.

Sometimes if there is enough silence he can hear the maggots chew, their little toothless mouths opening and closing on his dead twin flesh, sometimes he thinks he sees them _crawling_ under his _own_ skin.

Jeremiah has never thought much about his bond with Jerome, that strange almost ethereal connection he had always have with his brother. Now he thinks that the last move Jerome ever did was not letting it _shatter_ as he was breathing his last breath.

He can feel it, the death, the decay. Thats happening just six feet under where he stands now. He can hear Jerome laugh and mock him. " _Dig, brother_ " his raspy voice whispers in his ear. " _Come and find me_ ". And Jeremiah has to refrain his own body to jolt in motion, closing his hands in fists to fight that gnawling desire to dig, dig and dig until his brother's corpse is visible again, until he can see with his own eyes what he has been feeling this past months.

He doesn't, he fights that instinct, buring it deep down. He feels the maggots under his skin twirling, the tingling, itchng feeling that crawl on his face stopping under his eyes. He feels his own body twitch when the impulse come, crying to him to _claw_ his eyes _out_ trying to free the little pulsing beasts he has under his skin. He doesn't act upon any of those impulses.

Silently he asks himself if that's what Jerome is feeling, trapped in his own dead body, unable to move, unable to scare off those bugs which are slowly _eating_ him.

That impulse come again, stonger, when Jeremiah regains control of his body, he is on his knees upon his brother's grave, his hands clawed into the dirt, the shiny purple leather of his gloves looks more like a glimpse of what it's waiting for him under all this soil.

He hears his brother laugh and laugh, he knows it isn't true, still the dry, bitterness of the soil is the only thing he can taste in his mouth.

He thinks he is going crazy, that the gas is taking over, now, fast, fast rushing through his veins like a nasty virus.

" _What do you want from me?!_ " he tries to shout, not caring if someone sees him, but he can't. He is _choking_ , slowly suffucating on the dirt that's filling his, no, _Jerome's_ , mouth.  
He can't breath. His lungs filled with dust. The crawling on his skin become even more intense. The maggots are festering, crawling and chewing and he can feel it. _He can. He can!_

Jeremiah feels like he is going to cry, salty tears pickling at the corners of his eyes, his vision blurring, he doesn't know if it is from the tears or from the lack of air.

He tries to tell himself that nothing that he is feeling his true, but he can't all of what he is feeling is too real, too horrible, too scary.

Jerome laughs in his ear " _Come, brother_ " he says " _Why wontcha give me a hug? Like the old good days_ " as he hears this, he looks down, he isn't sure if he dug during his panic, _he isn't sure if any of this is real anymore_ , what he is sure of is that Jerome is there. Blue, green and white shades on his skin, his green glazed eyes are still there looking right at him, his arms stretched out as if he is trying to _grasp_ him and take him down with him.

Jeremiah tries to go back, but the dirt surrounding the grave is so slippery, _why?It was so dry before while it was choking him._ He falls down, right in his brother's arms. _His_ dead gloved hands close on his back rigid as claws, pressing him furter down. Jeremiah struggles, but Jerome has always been so much stonger than him and it happears to be true even in death.

He is almost going to shout, to order him to leave him, but then he sees them, white, fat, contorting maggots slithering out of his brother smiling disclosed lips. Jerome glazed eyes are still boring into his.

" _Remember what you promised me, 'Miah? Before you became a fucking traitor that is_ " Jeremiah can hear his brother's voice clear as day, even if he hasn't even moved, he is still... now, like the corpse he _should_ be.  
" _Remember? I still can even if my brain is a mush, maggots pie now" Jerome says "You promised that we'd be togheter forever. It's time for ya maintain that promise wontcha think?_ "  
He hears Jerome laughs, as his cold hands trails up his spine, one stopping on his neck the other tangling in his hair, tugging them sligthly. Trying to get a gasp out of him, trying to make him let those grave-worms slither inside him.

He won't, he won't!

" _Doesn't matter, 'Miah_ " Jerome sing-songs " _Even if you don't now, ya'll soon. We are going to be buried togheter soon enough_ "

Jeremiah almost asks him what he means, but then he feels the wet mud collapsing slowly then faster and _faster_ , and he panics. _He don't want to be buried alive_.

Jerome laughs and laughs. His cold hands clawing on his skin, the one in his hair tugging so hard he almost cry in pain, then it lessen it's grip, moving soothingly through his chemical green hair.

_It's caring._

_It's soft._

_It's not like Jerome at all._

Jeremiah thinks he sees Jerome's smile grow wider.

And then he is screaming, Jerome gloved hand _squeeze_ his throat with so much force that the boney tips of his fingers cut through his skin, red flowing between them, falling in fat drops on the dirtied white coat that _he_ wears.

The maggots crawl faster, faster, gnawing, _chewing_. Slithering up his brother's arms, and slipping in his wounds. Jeremiah screams and Jerome gets what he wanted, _laughing_ as his twin chokes on mud and maggots.


End file.
